The Circus is Coming to Town
by Tony Branston
Summary: How Eddie meets Laura and, more importantly, gets his pizza


Eddie had practically been on autopilot for the past hour, at the very least. He had no idea where he was actually going, but he had been driving as fast as his father's van would allow. Two hours had elapsed since he had fled in the first place, so it was safe to assume John had already informed the local authorities…not that they would be able to find him on their own now.

With his mind more or less free to think about what had happened today, Eddie fixated on the look John had given him after he had been shot. What right did that fuck have to be angry with Eddie, after everything he did to him? How did that _shit_ get off blaming him for what had happened to him?

Thinking that he could teach John a lesson…that had been where he'd made his mistake. That man was irredeemably insane, fueled only by hatred and desire to make people miserable. If he had just finished him off, he would have had plenty of time to escape before the police were on his trail. As it was now, he had no time to rest. Even though he had to be out of state by now that probably wasn't going to stop them from finding him.

If he was lucky, Eddie thought, he would probably make it to the border by tomorrow night. His Spanish was shitty, yes, but at least he could lie low there for…actually, he probably would stay there forever if he could. It wasn't like there was anything left for him at home. Maybe he could even find some sort of job there; it wasn't like there was anyone to check his education record or anything.

Fearing the worst, Eddie switched on the radio to hear what the news. He waited impatiently for national news to finish, letting the woman discussing the Florida recount go in one ear and out the other until he heard the jingle signaling the beginning of the local news. The discussion of a murder case almost knocked him off the road, but once he heard they were talking about a "stabber" who was on the loose the boy calmed down. The only other thing that caught his attention before the sports news was mention of a small girl disappearing from a local orphanage, with suspicions of kidnapping.

For the time being, he was safe. The only thing he was feeling beside a small, but growing sense of triumph was a rumbling in his stomach, which seemed to at least partially explain how he found himself drifting from the highway and into a strip mall. Eddie took full control once more and began to examine his options for a late lunch. "Nyaa," he rejected one idea aloud to a nonexistent audience, "nope, no, no, no…oh hell yeah!"

* * *

"Yeah! Suck it you jerks! I am the KING!" Eddie emptied another virtual round of magnum bullets into the television screen, knocking the life out of five identical virtual monsters. This was far more to his liking! Now he could blast the shit out of the bad guys, and he could be a hero for it! Every one of his infinite light bullets brought him even more glory as he progressed to purge the world from evil, and he loved it.

Even better, he wasn't working alone this time. At the other corner of the arcade cabinet stood an older man, who broke his concentration to identify the source of the sudden taunting. "Hey, calm down! Keep your mind on the screen! We don't have unlimited tokens or anything!"

"Ah, shut up!" Eddie shouted back at him without turning. "I'm playing this because I wanna have fun, and if you have a problem with that…go jerk off!"

"Bah!" The other man, in turn, didn't even turn his head, but instead opted to continue blasting away at the undead creeps charging at them.

Eddie too found himself intensifying his fire. It was kinda a shame these guys went down so easily; it would have been fun to watch them writhing in agony before dying. All he got to see was the bad guys hopping in his general direction after he shot off one of their legs. Each new wave of enemies was in fact beginning to bore him.

Until the last one was knocked away by a giant armored beast with a broadsword. Eddie actually began to panic as his shots were deflected and the boss knocked away his four remaining lives. As he loaded a few more quarters into the machine, he noticed his ally had departed.

No, wait. There he was, picking up his own pizza. Eddie had actually gotten so wrapped up in the game he forgot why he came here. "Hey!" the man shouted out, "They want you to come pick up yours now!"

He was a bit angry, but he remembered that he did need to be going soon. Eddie looked off into the screen once more, feeling a little upset about giving up all his progress, before blasting into the screen to finish off the "continue" timer. He needed to eat before he got going.

It was rather inexplicable, but as Eddie took his first bites it occurred to him that he actually hated this place. The pizza really didn't taste that good, and those robot singing animals on the stage…it was so fucking retarded. If it hadn't been for the little girl standing by and watching them, he may very well have shot them all up and taken his chances with another close escape.

As he shoved the rest of his first slice down his throat, Eddie noticed that the man in the arcade was walking up to the girl, and appeared to be scaring the crap out of her. "And where might your parents be little missy?"

The girl held her ground. "What do you care, fartface?"

He crouched down slightly, trying to make himself even more imposing to this little brat. "What's say I just call the police over here and they deal with you?"

That was when the girl stepped on his foot. The man screamed out some sort of obscenity before reaching into a pocket hidden in his jacket. One second later, the rest of the room was screaming at the sight of the man holding a revolver to the child.

Before he realized what had happened, Eddie found he too had gotten to his feet, and from his shorts he had grabbed his secondary pistol and shouted out a threat. The man's already-soured face took another dosage of anger before he put his gun away once again. "Shit man," he complained, "It's not like this was loaded or anything."

Eddie, however, still had his weapon out. His mind couldn't move on from the sight of this…psycho…putting a gun to a small child. Who the hell did he think he was, acting like he could just snuff out the life of a kid like that? He wasn't any better than the rest of them all. Now he didn't hesitate, and he pulled the trigger.

But nothing happened. Eddie fired again, but the man remained standing, and everyone else was still looking on in horror. After emptying what would have been a full clip, it finally registered that he forgot to load the gun.

Eddie disarmed himself, forcing himself to laugh. "Yeah, I knew you were joking man. Pretty funny."

He tried to get back to the pizza, but between its slightly-undercooked crust and the staring of everyone surrounding him he found it impossible. Every single table was staring at him, as if they were anticipating him to puke under all the pressure. The boy tried to focus on the pizza's face, the only thing in the room that wasn't out to get him deliberately.

Or maybe it wasn't; a piece was missing. Looking up, Eddie saw that little girl was sitting across from him, picking the mushrooms off the missing slice. "Aw come on," he moaned out to her, "Can't your mom and dad get you something to eat?"

The girl gave him the saddest face she could muster. "I don't have a mom and dad. They left me a long time ago."

"Then…what are you doing here? Shouldn't you, like, be in an orphanage or something?"

"I think I found someone who wants to adopt me, and I'm trying to find her. I wouldn't have run away, but she's so nice. I'm thinking that if I find her she'll keep me. Her name's Mary."

"Yeah, but…how'd you get here?"

"I walked part of the way. There was some creepy teenager who drove me up to here, but she freaked out when she stopped here to use the bathroom and ditched me."

"Well, where were you going?"

"I got a letter from Mary. She said she was going to a quiet and beautiful place. I think she was going to a town called Silent Hill. Do you think you could drop me off there on the way of wherever you're going?"

Eddie put his slice down. "Sorry. I'm trying to get to Mexico, and that would take me in the wrong direction."

Inexplicably, the girl took on a perplexed look. "But, Mexico is south of here, and so is Silent Hill. Besides, considering how long a drive it's going to be, one stop's not going to make much of a difference."

Eddie found himself unable to respond at first. "You mean…Mexico's not the big country with the mooses? Aww crap."

"That's Canada," The girl replied in a voice which, regardless of intentions, came off as rather condescending. "Anyway, Silent Hill's only a few miles away from here, so even if you dropped me off it would only take an hour or so."

"Look, I'm eating right now! Can you wait to talk about this until I'm done?" Eddie reached out to get another slice, but found himself reaching out into nothing.

Standing before the two of them was a very pissed off employee of the restaurant, boxing up their pizza. "Look," he growled at Eddie, "Just take your food, and get the hell out of here! And if you or your buddy ever come back here and scare away our customers we're gonna call the police on your ass!"

The waiter stomped off. Eddie looked down at the box, then up slightly at the girl's face. "So," she continued, "what do you say? I hear they have nice picnic places in Silent Hill."

"Fine," Eddie picked up the box, "Come on…" he realized he didn't know the girl's name, "Munchkin."

"My name's Laura" was the girl's only comment as she followed him.


End file.
